Necessity is the mother of invention. I have been dreading this day, but the day has come. Ryan no longer fits in ANY of his work clothes. Luckily, he’s a school teacher and that gives me until August to rectify the situation. Now we are faced with two choices. Go out and buy clothes, which are really expensive, or suck it up and learn to make him pants and shirts. Because of the dire situation, I’m forced to make this happen. I’m pushing myself to figure out a pant pattern and a long-sleeved shirt pattern.

This week was super rough. I don’t normally work on campus and when I do I would typically take public transit to make the 1.5 hour commute less stressful. However this week I had a friend visiting to teach me about structural connectivity analyses, so I rented a car to be able to show them around the Provo / Orem area. I’m behind on this post because I would just wake up, drive to Provo, work all day, drive home, and have about 45 minutes before I fell asleep to do it all over again the next day. But I did get to wear quite a few cute outfits, so let’s talk about those now!

Big news this week, it SNOWED here in Utah and not just up in the mountains but in the city too! We went from lovely spring weather, sunny, 75ºF to cold, snowy, freezing temperatures. Any fun wardrobe shenanigans had to be put on hold and I had to resort to wearing my limited cold weather clothes. I know I need more sweaters and long-sleeved stuff, but it wasn’t until February / March that I finally found some patterns I liked. I will put off sewing winter stuff until after summer though.

This week was a good reminder of how sewing in a strange way is a really great stress reliever. I had a couple of bumps this week: FedEx temporarily lost a package of fabric for an Etsy order, my serger jammed with thread and I was told it would take 4 weeks to fix, I bought a 2nd serger, etc. I’m also dealing with some really frustrating stuff with our apartment complex and family health issues, so my patience has been really thin this week.

This week has been about getting into the routine of taking photos each day and then not spending the rest of the day fussing over my photos and captions. Why I choose to participate is to push myself out of the lovely introvert hole I like to live in and is a great way to review and evaluate my very small wardrobe. Mission accomplished.

Last year, I just took Ryan’s old work pants that were showing wear and had holes around places and shortened them into shorts for the summer. That worked brilliantly and was a great way to upcycle his clothes, but this last year Ryan’s pant size has changed and I don’t have any old work pants to shorten. If Ryan is to have any summer shorts, I need to sew shorts from scratch. Sewing patterns for men are pretty dismal and sparse especially when it comes to pants and shorts. Luckily, very luckily, I found a pattern that sews up really quick and looks great. … More Burda Style Pattern 7381 Shorts

This post is not so much about the fantastically awesome, best-pant-pattern ever, but instead about the plights of finding fabric that will work for making pants. Here’s the dilemma, I need casual pants for work and everyday wear and I want them to come in colors other than black, but I don’t want the fabric to look ridiculous after an hour. … More Simplicity 8056 Amazing Fit Flared Pants